Sugar and spices in Portuguese Renaissance medicine

Abstract

The history of medicine in late fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Portugal cannot be dissociated from the evolution of the monarchy and overseas expansion. Kings and queens were responsible for changes in the institutional structures of charity, creating new hospitals (especially Nossa Senhora do Pópulo in Caldas and Todos-os-Santos in Lisbon) and a new set of confraternities – the Misericórdias – that would take charge of most hospitals in the kingdom from 1564 onwards. Overseas expansion made possible the transformation of the island of Madeira into one of the main producers of sugar, which was then distributed by private persons and institutions, including charitable ones, forming part of medical treatment for the sick poor. Asian spices, also, became common in public and private pharmacies early in the sixteenth century. Through hospitals, which were linked to the royal network of patronage, substances such as sugar and spices became available to the poor.

Keywords:

• sugar
• spices
• pharmacy
• hospitals
• charity

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Iona McCleery and Hugh Cagle for the very useful comments on an earlier version of this article.

Notes

¹These document collections contain miscellaneous documents, the majority issued by the Crown, consisting mainly of correspondence, receipts, and royal orders.

²On sugar in the Atlantic Islands see Magalhães, “Açúcar nas Ilhas.” Although discovered by the Portuguese in 1500, Brazil was not a significant source of exotic products in this period, except for brazil-wood. Sugar production there began in the later sixteenth century, and is thus outside the scope of this essay.

³On this trade see Godinho's classic work, Descobrimentos. The classic work in Portuguese on the history of pharmacy is Pita, História da Farmácia.

⁴Donations to his sisters go back to the 1480s, when Manuel was the duke of Beja, and owner of Madeira. Arquivo Nacional/Torre do Tombo, Corpo Cronológico (hereafter referred to as AN/TT, CC), parte 2, mç. 1, doc. 41, dated 6 November 1484.

⁵Sá, “Duas Irmãs para um Rei,” 137, 153.

⁶AN/TT, CC, parte 1, mç. 25, doc. 77.

⁷AN/TT, CC, parte 2, mç. 82, doc. 30.

⁸To quote some examples: AN/TT, CC, parte 2, mç. 73, doc. 180; CC, parte 2, mç. 73, doc. 187; CC, parte 2, mç. 74, doc. 39; CC, parte 2, mç. 82, doc. 73; CC, parte 2, mç. 88, doc. 62.

⁹Other wills state similar duties towards the poor on the part of members of the high nobility.

¹⁰Park and Henderson, “First Hospital,” 165–68.

¹¹AN/TT, Gavetas, gav. 16, mç. 1, doc. 16; Correia, Origens e Formação, 547–54. Sá, “Hospitais Portugueses,” 88–9.

¹²In Carvalho, Crónica do Hospital de Todos-os-Santos, 253–57.

¹³Correia, Compromisso. The original manuscript is at the Museum of the Hospital and Caldas (Inv. 379).

¹⁴Arquivo Distrital de Leiria (hereafter referred to as ADLRA), Fundo do Real Hospital das Caldas da Rainha, Pergaminhos – Apontamentos da rainha D. Leonor, Dep.VI-Gav.3-Doc.26. Sousa identifies Diogo Dias as “notary of D. Leonor in Alenquer, in 1500, Bachelor of Law, possibly one of the most trusted men of the queen” (Sousa, A Rainha D. Leonor, 850). See also Almeida, História da Igreja, 47–48.

¹⁵Hollingsworth, Patronage in Renaissance Italy, 287.

¹⁶ADLRA, Fundo do Real Hospital das Caldas da Rainha, Pergaminhos – Bula do Papa Júlio II (1508), Dep.VI-Gav.3-Doc.27.

¹⁷AN/TT, Mesa da Consciência e Ordens, Hospitais, Hospital das Caldas da Rainha, “Compromisso da Senhora Rainha D. Leonor do Hospital das Caldas,” mç. 2, no. 65.

¹⁸Sá, “Catholic Charity in Perspective.”

¹⁹Henderson, Renaissance Hospital; Park, “Medicine and Society”; Park, “Healing the Poor”; McVaugh, Medicine Before the Plague, 136–65; Lindemann, Medicine and Society, 157–92; Skinner, Health and Medicine, 79–107.

²⁰Albala, Eating Right; Albala, Food in Early Modern Europe, 214–25; Scully, Art of Cookery; Scully and Scully, Early French Cookery; Adamson, Food in Medieval Times, 205–32.

²¹Pereira, Obras Médicas. There is a lot of dispute about the identity of this individual. See Meirinhos, “Pedro Hispano”; McCleery, “Opportunities for Teaching.”

²²Feingold and Navarro-Brotóns, Universities and Science; O'Boyle, Art of Medicine. As Henderson observed, the Thesaurum Pauperum “was one of the most widely circulated works of remedies for the treatment of over fifty common complaints and diseases” (Renaissance Hospital, 240). It was translated into many languages, having nine editions in Portuguese, twenty-four in Spanish, thirteen in French, nine in English, and thirteen in Italian (Pereira, Obras Médicas, 58–63).

²³García-Ballester, “‘Six Non-Natural Things’.” Hispano's Liber de Conservanda Sanitate was not addressed to the poor sick, but dedicated to Frederick II of Sicily (1194–1250). This literature was commissioned by noblemen and kings: two examples are the Regimen Sanitatis ad Regem Aragonum, written in 1306–7 by Arnau de Villanova (1235–1311), a Catalan physician, dedicated to King Jaime II of Aragon; and Vergel de Sanidad by Lobera de Ávila, written in 1530 for Charles V (1500–1558).

²⁴In the mid-seventeenth century Jorge de São Paulo (a priest of the order of St John the Evangelist) wrote an extensive chronicle of the hospital of Nossa Senhora do Pópulo, where he stated that during the sixteenth century its physicians followed Galenic principles, and also acknowledged some treatises on the thermal baths, such as De Thermis, by Andrea Bacci (1524–1600). São Paulo, Hospital das Caldas, I: 76, 93–94.

²⁵Gil-Sotres, “Regimens of Health.”

²⁶Manuppella and Arnaut, “Livro de Cozinha.” Infanta D. Maria (1538–77) was daughter to infante D. Duarte and Isabel de Braganza, and thus a granddaughter of King Manuel I; she became Duchess of Parma and Piacenza by her marriage to Alessandro Farnese in 1565. She was to take this recipe book with her to Parma upon her marriage.

²⁷Correia, Compromisso; Portugaliae Monumenta Misericordiarum (hereafter referred to as PMM), III: doc. 25. The statutes of Santa Maria Nuova (Florence) present the same difficulty. See Park and Henderson, “First Hospital,” 173.

²⁸PMM, III: doc. 25, 90–91. The first duty of the hospital physician was to observe symptoms of the patient and get acquainted with his/her state. See Correia, Compromisso, 32; Siraisi, Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine, 125–52.

²⁹Freire, “Inventário da Infanta D. Beatriz.”

³⁰Andrea Mattioli quoted by Henderson, Renaissance Hospital, 292–93.

³¹AN/TT, CC, parte 2, mç. 13, doc. 53, dated 3 August 1507; CC, parte 1, mç. 6, doc. 22; CC, parte 2, mç. 61, doc. 93.

³²Salgado and Salgado, Açúcar da Madeira, 5–16.

³³AN/TT, CC, parte 2, mç. 61, doc. 93.

³⁴Quantities awarded to the hospitals: doc. 31 – Hospital de Jesus de Santarém (seven arrobas); Hospital de Évora (five arrobas); Hospital de Montemor-o-Novo (four arrobas); Hospital de Estremoz (three arrobas); Hospital de Tavira (six arrobas); Hospital de Arraiolos (one arroba); Hospital das Caldas (fifteen arrobas). Doc. 32 – Hospital de presos de Santarém (seven arrobas); Hospital de Évora (five arrobas); Hospital de Montemor-o-Novo (four arrobas); Hospital de Tavira (six arrobas); Hospital de Arraiolos (one arroba); Hospital das Caldas (fifteen arrobas); Hospital de Todos os Santos de Lisboa (fifty arrobas); Hospital de Beja (twenty arrobas).

³⁵For example, in 1579–80 some arrobas of white sugar were sold in order to buy sugar of lower quality, given the hospital's financial difficulties. Arquivo Histórico do Hospital Termal das Caldas da Rainha (hereafter referred to as AHHTCR), Livro de receita e despesa (1579–80), Dep.VI-3-D-4, fl. 17.

³⁶See also Munro, “Consumption of Spices”; Freedman, “Spices and Late-Medieval European Ideas.”

³⁷Sá, “Trabalho,” 114.

³⁸Munro, “Consumption of Spices,” 19.

³⁹Rodrigues, “Fleeing the Plague”; Rodrigues, “Consumos Alimentares.”

⁴⁰Only the confirmation of this donation by Philip I in 1596 is available in the sources. ADLRA, Fundo do Real Hospital das Caldas da Rainha, Pergaminhos – Carta de confirmação de Filipe I (1596), Dep.VI-Gav.6-Doc.57.

⁴¹Brabant, “Sucre et le Doux,” 57.

⁴²ADLRA, Fundo do Real Hospital das Caldas da Rainha, Livro de receita e despesa (1548–49), Dep.VI-3-C-1, fl. 206.

⁴³Quoted in Scully, “Sickdish,” 137.

⁴⁴The sixteenth-century ordinances of Santa Maria Nuova (Florence) also refer to this. Park and Henderson, “First Hospital,” 181.

⁴⁵Shaw and Welch, Making and Marketing Medicine, 199–200.

⁴⁶ADLRA, Fundo do Real Hospital das Caldas da Rainha, Livros de receitas e despesas. The sixteenth-century Santa Maria Nuova's statutes noted that its pharmacy would dispense around “4,000 pounds of cane sugar and as much again of honey” (Park and Henderson, “First Hospital,” 182).

⁴⁷Nuñez de Oria, Regimiento y Auiso de Sanidad, 297.

⁴⁸ADLRA, Fundo do Real Hospital das Caldas da Rainha, Livro de receita e despesa (1518–19), Dep.VI-3-B-1, fl. 192; Livro de receita e despesa (1542–43), Dep.VI-3-B-7, fl. 180v; AHHTCR, Livro de receita e despesa (1547–48), Pasta 2, Inv. 236, fl. 298; Livro de receita e despesa (1520–21), Pasta 1, Inv. 235, fl. 2; São Paulo, Hospital das Caldas, II: 41–42.

⁴⁹AHHTCR, Livro de receita e despesa (1547–48), Pasta 2, Inv. 236, fl. 296.

⁵⁰ADLRA, Fundo do Real Hospital das Caldas da Rainha, Livro de receita e despesa (1532–33), Dep.VI-3-B-4, fl. 251v.

⁵¹AN/TT, CC, parte 2, mç. 76, doc. 15. On the medical uses of these substances see the classic work by Orta, Colóquios dos Simples (1568).

⁵²Daupiás, Cartas de Privilégio, 18–56. AN/TT, CC, parte 2, mç. 52, doc. 194; parte 1, mç. 56, doc. 34. On cassia fistula see Table 6, note c.

⁵³AN/TT, CC, parte 2, mç. 78, doc. 10 (1518); parte 2, mç. 82, doc. 110 (1519); parte 2, mç. 80, doc. 135 (1519); parte 2, mç. 129, doc. 2 (1525); parte 2, mç. 134, doc. 160 (1526); parte 2, mç. 134, doc. 29 (1526); parte 2, mç. 136, doc. 42 (1526); parte 2, mç. 142, doc. 9 (1527); parte 2, mç. 142, doc. 99 (1527).

⁵⁴ADLRA, Fundo do Real Hospital das Caldas da Rainha, Livro de receita e despesa (1524–25), Dep.VI-3-B-3, fls. 322, 323.

⁵⁵ Cidrão is a fruit resulted from the crossing between grapefruit, tangerine, and Seville orange; diacridrão was a preparation of its rind with sugar.

⁵⁶On the location of other apothecary shops: Cohen, “Miscarriages of Apothecary Justice,” 492–3.

⁵⁷Vivo, “Pharmacies as Centres of Communication”; Gentilcore: “For the Protection,” 111.

⁵⁸It may also be the case with Nossa Senhora do Pópulo, since in the mid-sixteenth century Pêro Taborda, a forty-five-year-old apothecary, was denounced to the Inquisition. He was accused of slandering the priest of the town “in front of his pharmacy.” The process dates from 1566, the apothecary being accused of defamation, because he had said in the company of Simão Garcia, chaplain of the hospital, and others, that the priest “dishonoured women and orphans.” AN/TT, Tribunal do Santo Ofício, Inquisição de Lisboa, processo 10952.

⁵⁹Henderson, Renaissance Hospital, 291. See also: Strocchia, “Nun Apothecaries,” 637; Welch, Shopping in the Renaissance, 151–58.

⁶⁰Correia, Compromisso; Lafont and Van Robaeys, “Pratique de l'Art de l'Apothicaire.”

⁶¹São Paulo, Hospital das Caldas, I: 104.

⁶²Gentilcore, Healers and Healing, 47; Goodman, Power and Penury, 209–60; Huguet-Termes, “New World Materia Medica.”

⁶³Oliveira, Elementos para a História, I: 570–71.

⁶⁴São Paulo, Hospital das Caldas, II: 453–56.

⁶⁵AN/TT, CC, parte 1, mç. 24, doc. 25.

⁶⁶Sousa, Systema, ou Collecção dos Regimentos Reaes, VI: 338–43. In the royal chancery of King Manuel I there are numerous professional charts given to apothecaries. As an example, see AN/TT, Chancelaria de D. Manuel I, book 10, fl. 62v.

⁶⁷The building was destroyed during the 1755 earthquake. Although an up-to-date monograph is lacking, see Carmona, Hospital Real, and also Castillo Oreja and González García, “Mirada del Testigo.”

⁶⁸The number of members of the queen's household is not known; however, at her death in 1525, 103 persons were incorporated into King João III's court. Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, Colecção Pombalina, cod. 648.

⁶⁹The Benedictine Abbey of Tibães (Braga) still has cupboards in its conciergerie that were used to contain medicines to distribute to the poor.

⁷⁰Pereira, Documentos Históricos, 75–80. The king's pharmacist set the price of drugs and other medical substances for the rest of the kingdom, thereby listing them in specific documents.

⁷¹Mintz, Sweetness and Power, 45.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lisbeth de Oliveira Rodrigues

Lisbeth Rodrigues is a postdoctoral research fellow at Gabinete de História Económica e Social, Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão of the University of Lisbon. Her Ph.D. focused on the Portuguese hospitals during the Renaissance, specifically on the thermal hospital of Nossa Senhora do Pópulo. Her postdoctoral research project, sponsored by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT - SFRH/BPD/95195/2013), aims to study the credit network constructed by the Misericórdia of Lisbon during the eighteenth century. Her recent publications include “Trocar os bens da Terra pellos do Ceo: preparação e celebração da morte no hospital de Nossa Senhora do Pópulo (1485-1580)” (2014); “A influência do Compromisso no quotidiano do hospital de Nossa Senhora do Pópulo durante o século XVI” (2012); “Os consumos alimentares de um hospital quinhentista: o caso do hospital das Caldas em vida da rainha D. Leonor” (2010); and “Fleeing the Plague: Queen D. Leonor in Caldas de Óbidos (1518–1519)” (2009).

Isabel dos Guimarães Sá

Isabel dos Guimarães Sá teaches Early Modern European History at the History Department of the University of Minho and is a researcher of Centro de Estudos de Comunicação e Sociedade of the same university. She has researched on social and religious themes of the History of Portugal and its empire from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, namely on the history of poverty and welfare, having written several books on the Portuguese confraternities of Misericórdia: “Quando o rico se faz pobre. Misericórdias, caridade e poder no Império Português, 1500–1800” (1997); “As Misericórdias Portuguesas: séculos XVI a XVIII” (2013). Her recent work also includes the biographies of several Portuguese queens: “Leonor de Lencastre. De princesa a rainha-velha” (2011); “Rainhas consortes de D. Manuel I” (2012).